Sammamish representatives signed off on a plan to spend more than $268,000 on adding a new out-building behind Eastside Fire & Rescue’s headquarters Nov. 8, but say it should not be seen as a commitment to the city staying with EF&R past 2014.

“I wouldn’t read into it too much,” Mayor Tom Odell said in an interview after the vote. Read more

Within minutes of resolving to work out their differences so that Eastside Fire & Rescue could exist past its current 2014 expiration date, the fire service’s board of directors grappled with a thorny issue as old as the agency itself.

Fire officials are pushing the agency’s partners to chip in for a remodel and expansion of the headquarters building, located on Newport Way in Issaquah. In March, Deputy Chief Wes Collins proposed reconfiguring the inside of the building to add seven offices, a conference room, copy room and an upstairs women’s bathroom, as well as a storage building for EFR equipment that currently sits outside. Read more